Long distance relationships are hard, but a Korean couple have found a creative way to deal with physical separation. Danbi Shin and Seok Li are both artists, and they’re working on a cool photo-collage project that bridges the distance between them.

Despite the 14-hour time difference between New York and Seoul, where Danbi and Seok live, they photograph themselves doing similar things simultaneously. Then they merge the two pictures, careful to ensure accuracy and symmetry, to make a single image. They also try their best to find similar scenes in totally different environments, and later post the collages on Instagram, where they collectively go as ‘ShinLiArt’.

Aptly named ‘Half&Half’, the project is meant to place the couple together through art, if not in real life. “The project aims to discover similarities during the course of a completely different lifestyle between New York and Seoul,” they revealed. “Our art started with a simple thought of wondering if anything can be created while being away from each other.”

One picture, for instance, shows Danbi standing on the Brooklyn Bridge in the daytime, while Seok stands facing her at a park in Seoul, where it’s night. The picture is so well edited so it looks like they’re actually gazing into each other’s eyes. “I stand before you after a walk,” the Instagram caption reads. “We gaze at each other and share the same feeling at the same time but from a different place. I miss you and I have met you.”

Another photo combines their faces as they communicated over Skype, while another is a mashup of their hands held up against the Times Square at night and a field in Seoul during the day. Not all the photographs feature the couple though, they also have collages of day-to-day stuff – a sushi dinner fused with a sandwich lunch, a New York yellow cab mashed up with an Orcher Taxi in Seoul, combined restaurant signs, bowls of cereal, street signs, potted plants and even ice cream cones.

With over 76,000 followers, Danbi and Seok are well-known Instagram personalities now. “I think many people felt sympathy with our long-distance relationship,” Shin said. “We received a lot of messages cheering for us and news articles have been made from all over the world.”

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